Overrated

It’s that time of the month again. Awkward silence, steaming coffee and some funny-shaped moon. I’m outside. No crickets. No music. Just me here, and the single mosquito taking a dump on my exposed legs.

But I love this new-found ritual of mine. ‘Neighbour’ insisted that I’ll most likely end up lowering rent of nearby empty flats. Her reason; because the more up-market an estate is, the less likely it is to have people outdoors staring towards the unfathomable space at night. You won’t understand this occultic trait – of moonlight on the skin – unless you’ve tried all other tricks to wake the muse. And then the muse sneaks in slowly and gives that writer’s block a killer punch.

Today (night), I’ve tried hard to scream without making noise. This blog really helps me do that. The funny thing … bloggers are so overrated. Us and a few other things …;

Breaking news is overrated

Sadly, they have sucked the life out of that phrase. Is it just me; or ‘breaking news’ is no longer heartbreaking? I’d expect media houses to tag earthquake alerts and coup de tat as breaking news. Bank break-ins by digging underground tunnels have become so ‘every day’ so there’s nothing really heartbreaking about those.

Academically though, – that means the boring one – the definition of breaking news is newly received information about an event that is currently occurring or developing. In essence, I shouldn’t rant about this. But in comparison to the Stone Age, modern age ‘Breaking News’ sounds like a very common daily dose of the ‘you didn’t know but I know’ contest slapped in our faces by the media guys.

Surprise bashes are overrated

I can’t blame ladies. But it’s outlandish for a whole creature of the human species that reeks of testosterone to feign being surprised by a bash. How now? I mean, I once bumped into a stray hyena in Ongata Rongai yet I wasn’t an inch surprised. However, I’ll admit I’ve stage-managed ‘surprise’ so many times in bash situations where I was meant to. Maybe my ancestors were the non-sentimental freaks who slashed colonialists’ throats. Or, am I just the unromantic caveman that I and my blog have been suspecting me to be?

I was once involved in planning a surprise shindig for some colleague. Well, to me, it did look like chalking out a military reconnaissance. A lot of strategies. We all had roles and “hiding behind a bush, dashing out with cake while everyone screamed all around” is the best way I can explain mine. And then I did it.

I screamed. But I don’t know how to. You never want to hear me scream. Then it was all weird. And because my sanity was threatened by the event; and people were making stupid jokes and laughing about it, I peed in the bonfire and stopped the party, clear? Ouch. The nights were mainly made for saying things that you can’t say tomorrow day. Oh Creator, why did you invent us introverts? Surprisingly, people still throw surprise bashes.

Most things people do on the internet

As if we didn’t know … Stop doing stupid things just because idiots on the internet are doing them. Most of us are kids trapped in grown-up bodies. The only thing preventing play is obesity, employer and insufficient funds.

Well, I’d started courting this idea of giving sunsets my unflinching, unwavering, unconditional, uncompromised attention. It’s what I’d seen people on INSTAGRAM do. Only, I wasn’t for posting the pictures. I’d stare at the horizon from 6 to dusk until the horizon sank its teeth into the whole of the remaining sun. You know that overrated thing I’m pointing towards, right? I’d expect meditational therapy from the ordeal, but all I’d end up with was a stream of black ants crawling up my legs. At first, I dismissed them as friendly inquisitive animals that occasionally visit. However, later on, I spotted funny bite-marks slowly morphing into tattoos, and copying internet people stopped.

Life is overrated

I also didn’t expect this one. A bee can locate pollen from a distance of 7 miles but I hadn’t seen this one coming. It’s the muse. Life though … It’s a cesspool. You scratch, you claw, you swim, you think you’ll get to the top, but it’s not that way. That’s just how you’re wired to think. Yet if you know, you can stay underwater and enjoy a cool swim.

It’s funny how we sometimes hope to walk some character out of a book, magazine or movie and be them. Yet mostly, we are that character in a dusty book lying unnoticed in some dark corner of the library. It’s a big world. And … life, so overrated. We have standards for everything and striving to keep up removes the LIFE from LIFE. I’ve learnt if I understand this, I won’t be mad at the tortoise for living so long and never doing anything productive. Same with turtles.

Why are avocadoes overrated? What other things are overrated? Keep the conversation alive in the comments’ section.